Katara remembered him coming home. The warm weight of him in the bed next to her, the way he would slide his arm around her, pulling her close. He held her against his chest, face buried in her hair. Their legs would tangle together, his thigh pressed between hers.

She loved the strength and gentle roughness of his hands, on her waist, her hip, her thigh. In the days when he was lean, with a firm chest and strong back, he would splay his fingers across her skin. He ran his palms over her body in broad, hungry strokes. Later, when they had both grown softer, and moved more slowly, he traced her curves with his fingertips. He drew slow circles around her eyes, brushed lines up and down the small of her back. He still touched her with the same tenderness, the same reverence. That never changed.

The moonlight on his pale skin made him look ghostly, though his dark eyes were always warm. She could see his smile in them, and they would find something to laugh about. His trip or her work. Later their children. It was hard when duty made of phantom of him, when he had no choice but to be apart from them. She was always relieved when he came home and they would cling to each other, even if it was only for a moment. They would share the silent reassurance both of them understood.

"I'm here. I missed you. I love you."

She is waiting for him again. She has done it so many times. Katara is alone in the house and there is a knock at the door.

"Master Katara? Senna is in labor."

It has been nearly a year. Every birth has been reported to the White Lotus, to her. In the North, in the swamps of the Earth Kingdom. It could have been any of them. It will be years before they can know, really.

But she feels it. There is some silent vibration no one else knows, like someone standing silently in a dark room with her. It is not the same. But it is familiar. She feels a pull, and it feels like the moments after bending water out of a stream, pulling it free of rocks and debris and tiny animals.

Or maybe she is just a sad, old woman imagining things, trying to make herself feel better. Maybe she is becoming senile already, which would be a relief some days.

She gathers her supplies in silence. On impulse, she opens a particular drawer, one she rarely goes into. It is the place she put his things, without meaning to. They are things she could have given to their children, if she could bear to part with them. The string of beads comes out, snaking out from under a piece of paper with his handwriting on it, catching on Appa's whistle.

She used to touch them often, after he first died. They were always so close to him, laying against his skin. It felt like touching a part of him, the only part she had left. She watched him use them to count mantras, the strand passing slowly through his hands, over and over again. First it comforted her to touch them. Then it hurt her just to see them.

She slips them over her head, hides them under her clothes without understanding why she is doing it. The wood is cool but warms quickly against her chest. It feels important, then foolish.

She used to wonder sometimes, when they lay together in the warm, quiet darkness, whether she knew the ancient spirit he embodied at all. Whether it radiated out, and how much of his brightness came from that formless, shining weight he carried. Whether that deathless part of him knew her. Remembered things. People.

She knows she will find out soon enough and does not feel ready for the answer.

She puts out the lamp and goes out, into the ice and snow and the evening.